Shenstone Grange

SHENSTONE GRANGE

A detached house comprising a 17th-century timber-framed range with extensive additions dating to around 1901.

The original range is a two-storey, three-bay timber-framed house with clay pantile roof and brick stack, now entirely covered in roughcast render. The Edwardian range is of brick with roughcast render and applied mock timber framing, plain clay tiled roof with moulded finials and rolled ridge tiles, and brick stack. A later 19th-century crosswing to the rear is of brick with roughcast render.

The timber-framed house appears to have been a lobby-entry house with a single room on either side of the stack and lobby, orientated north-south with its gable end to the road. The Edwardian wing, which is single depth, runs east-west along the road front, adjoining the timber-framed house on its eastern side. An extension to the rear is a two-bay room extending the timber-framed building, with a crosswing running eastwards from its northern end containing a single large open space at ground floor level. A single-storey sun room has also been added to the eastern end of the c.1901 extension.

The main south elevation facing the road consists of the gable end of the north-south range with an attached range of two bays under a pitched roof. The gable end has tripartite timber casements to ground and first floor, and a two-pane fixed light to the attic. The full height of the gable has decorative applied mock timber framing with roughcast render infill above a stone plinth. In the later range, the building is brick-built in English bond to a string course with moulded brick plinth. The ground floor features a gabled, glazed porch with mock timber framing above a moulded brick plinth, and a squared bay window with four-paned timber casements with stained glass toplights. To the first floor are two gabled half-dormers with three-light windows similar to the ground-floor bay window. All gables to this elevation have decorative bargeboards with pendant timbers and decorative finials to the roofs.

The west elevation is entirely covered in roughcast render, comprising three bays to the south (the timber-framed house), two bays further north, and a further two bays in a gabled extension with brick plinth. The gabled extension has a double garage up-and-over door to the ground floor with two modern three-light timber casements with opening toplights above. Similar windows appear in the two bays added in the 19th century, with an entrance door in the northern bay. The three bays of the timber-framed range have irregular fenestration: the northern bay has three-light windows similar to those elsewhere in the house to ground and first floors; the central bay has an Edwardian window with stained glass toplights to the ground floor at the site of the former entrance doorway, with a two-light timber casement offset to the first floor; the southernmost bay has only a single square fixed light to the ground floor.

Interior

The timber-framed house is much more evident internally. At ground floor, the original house was of lobby-entry design with a heated room either side of the central stack, which at ground-floor level is built of sandstone. The kitchen, the northern room, has a very large chamfered beam running north-south with exposed ceiling joists across the entire room, with chamfers and stepped stops. The door to the lobby is set in its original frame and has an early, if not original, plank and batten door with the remains of a 17th-century latch serving as a handle. The framing continues along the lobby and into the living room to the south, which has the same arrangement of very large beam and exposed ceiling joists with chamfers and stepped stops. The fireplace is of sandstone, recently infilled with brick, with a massive bressumer beam with a very shallow four-centred arch.

The Edwardian range has a large staircase hall and drawing room to the front at ground floor, with cloakroom and ancillary rooms to the rear.

At first floor, a single large bedroom occupies the Edwardian wing. In the timber-framed range, visible decorations are now all late 20th century, but a timber doorway remains in the landing at the point where the timber wing meets the later extension to the north. The southernmost bedroom retains its original ceiling, visible from the attic space above.

In the attic, the Edwardian range has an entirely 20th-century roof structure, but the timber framing of the roof in the original range remains almost entirely intact, having been encapsulated below the new roof. The trusses are formed from principal rafters with tie beams, collar and diagonal struts supporting the collars, with single trenched purlins. The ridge purlin is set diagonally and supported by crossed principal rafters. A few curved wind braces remain in situ and the majority of the common rafters are also original. One mid-truss retains all but one panel of wattle and daub infill, and others are infilled with brick. The chimney stack has been rebuilt in brick at this level.

History

The original building at Shenstone Grange was a two-storey, three-bay timber-framed house dating from the 17th century, probably a farmstead in an isolated situation alongside the main road access to Balsall Common. By the mid-19th century farming use had presumably ceased: the tithe map shows the timber range and an extension to the north, described as three tenements. By 1887, the main range has an additional bay to the north and a single-storey cross wing to the rear. Around 1901, the house, now situated in the village but still surrounded by a large landholding, was substantially extended, creating a new main range fronting the road comparable in size to the original range. By the later 20th century, having become surrounded by modern suburban houses with its land dwindled to around half an acre, Shenstone Grange was extended again, creating a second storey at the rear of the timber-framed range and further increasing the overall volume of the building. The building is mentioned in the Victoria County History as a 17th-century house.